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In Between Hangovers is seeking well crafted poems. 6 Max to inbetweenhangovers@yahoo.com No previously published and no simultaneous submissions. Include photo and SHORT bio. Expect a timely response. Work published on a rolling basis. -Tasha

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Month: August 2016

There was this Wasp (I’m serious!) I wouldn’t say he was intentionally bad but he was a motherfucker when it came to nocturnal wanderings, for example; he would often leave the toilet seat up and douse the kitchen in his projects. Although he did have a magical side, which entailed cosmic crap and shit like that. His main squeeze (and he had a few, boy, did he!) was a Christina Applegate looking motherfucker, except in a ‘Walking Dead’ way. Now that would be enough for most people but for our ‘Hero’ it was the opposite. With knives in both hands, he fought the law, symmetrically and determinedly, taking out a finer-pointed doorframe. “It’s all relative to the groove” he muttered under his breath, as he shuddered, violently. There was hell up for a fortnight until, the aforementioned stopped being a fool and gave up (To reggae music) eating the traditional pork pie with glee.

My father’s eyes are now a squint
from having suffered two almost
attacks to the heart. We didn’t want
his ribs sawed open – and it didn’t
come to that – his other bones have
compensated by showing through
his frame. He has given up on
remembering the colour of his pills:
blue for tremors, peach for blood. I’ve
never been able to tell colours either.

Sheikha A. is from Pakistan and United Arab Emirates. Over 200 of her poems appear in 90 literary venues, both print and online, including several anthologies by different presses. She edits poetry for eFiction India. More about her can be accessed on sheikha82.wordpress.com

Perhaps
if there were more bowling alleys
in some of these countries
there would be less of an inclination
to decapitate westerners
and roll their heads through
the streets.
Maybe I am wrong.
It would hardly be the first time.
Yes yes, they demand their ransom money
but what I think they really want
are bowling balls.
And a few bumper lanes to start off.
For beginners because everyone has
to start somewhere.
On some unconscious level
they want to enter into a bowling league
under some cheeky pseudonym
Allah would approve
of.
A trophy for the winner.
Modest in presentation, of course.
Anyone who bowls a perfect game
winning a trip for two
to Mecca.

Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a happily unmarried proud father of none. His work can be found both in print and online in such joints as Your One Phone Call, Horror Sleaze Trash, and Dead Snakes. He has an affinity for dragonflies, discount tequila, and all things sarcastic.

i don’t know why
but i got on this bob dylan trip
with my wife
as we were walking through the neighborhood

talking about bob
making all of these sinatra old timey records now
and how sometimes it just takes people longer
to become complete and total bores lacking in vision

my wife said,
you know, bob is playing a whole bunch
of those standards at his shows

big surprise, i said
another artists letting down the masses
with mediocrity and self-indulgence

she said, maybe people will revolt

people will take what’s handed to them, i said
but it would be nice to see people shouting

hey, play like a woman!
play like a rolling stone!
enough of this old fart music!

of course, most of those songs are over fifty years old too

i bet bob would walk off the stage, my wife said.

nah, i said, he’s probably part of the zeitgeist now
he’ll probably stop playing and shout down to the crowd
fuck you people, this is donald trump’s america!

which i shouted out loud
just as two muslim girls met us at a crosswalk

having no context for why i barked such putrid inanity

they both gave me the dirtiest looks from women
that i’d seen in a long time

and then kept going their way
as we kept going ours

over battered sidewalks and sink holes
traffic and bass permeating another garbage-strewn block

all the refuse of life that ties us together
from the things that work so hard to rip us apart

not really saying anything
until we were far enough away

when i finally said,
i hope dylan at least plays jokerman
or maybe tangled up in blue.

John Grochalski is the author of The Noose Doesn’t Get Any Looser After You Punch Out (Six Gallery Press 2008), Glass City (Low Ghost Press, 2010), In The Year of Everything Dying (Camel Saloon, 2012), Starting with the Last Name Grochalski (Coleridge Street Books, 2014), the novel, The Librarian (Six Gallery Press 2013), and the forthcoming novel, The Wine Clerk (Six Gallery Press 2016). Grochalski currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, in the section that doesn’t have the bike sharing program.

why did i kiss him,
eyes turning upwards to the last socket
bracing emotion downwards,
locking my eyes to see only feet and plastic tiled floor,

i kissed him on his cheek, stubbling rough,
i was told he look startled and surprised,
not as surprised as i, when i held his hand in both mine
and kissed his cheek, eyes shut

he must have been a bit shocked,
i didn’t want any extra turmoil of my heartful grinding
to a death that had already come.

I kissed him with my eyes blinded,
by grief.

I struggle for my voice to be heard above the din. I’m an no-one, and my non-entity is not a debatable issue. I find it strange that Envoi, Dreamcatcher, Morphrog.com and scarletleafreview.com have agreed to publish me. Most, more sensibly, have not////

You know that feeling you get
When you’re walking around
And you forget
That it’s just another person

But you see demons below the surface
Cutting into you with their eyes
They saw right through your disguise

You know that situation that arises
When you’re just trying to survive
But you have to hide it
From the one you love most

They’re all after me
I have so many plans
But there is a war in my mind
And shackles on my hands

Help me friends
I’m supposed to be free

A mental floatation device
But I’m 20,000 leagues under the sea
I don’t know who that masked figure will be
But I’m asking for my savior, please.

Nicholas Sollitto is a creative individual who specializes in poetry. His work has appeared in magazines such as Afflatus and InkStain Press. Nicholas’s new video for his original poem, “Where do shooting stars go?” is coming out soon. One can find and follow Nicholas Sollitto on Twitter @wordsbyns.